Together
by Amilyn
Summary: Derek and Jesse, stumbling, finding new words for old things in new places. Warnings: language, roughness, suicidal ideation.


Together

by Amy L. Hull amilyn at comcast dot net

Written for musesinspiration in the Yuletide 2009 Challenge

ooo

Derek and Jesse had fucked more times than he could count.

They'd fucked after she'd called him in when he was about to eat his gun, and he'd held her hips in a bruising grip as he pounded into her, trying to feel alive, trying to feel something. She'd wrapped her legs around him, raked her short nails down his back, and gasped his name instead of "soldier."

It hadn't been his given name, but no one had used that since Kyle had vanished.

They'd fucked around other resistance fighters: there'd been no privacy in close tunnels, so you'd taken what pleasure you could when you could. They'd fucked each other among the rubble, because even when it had cut their skin, the release had been worth it. They'd fucked in the tunnels, on that near-pristine submarine of hers, and even in a metal holding cell surrounded by metal.

It had been their way, together, of saying "Fuck you" to Skynet, of asserting their humanity and the possibility that human life might go on. They'd fucked, knowing that fucking might produce a life, even though pregnancy and infants were a liability, even though no mother or child stood even half the chance of the tiny fucking remnants of the last humans.

Then there had been metal gone bad, infections that killed, submarines gone missing and off course, impossible secret missions to the past without goodbyes, and an absence of fucking anything but his own hand in this paradise of plenty and privilege.

Then there were glimpses, the occasional woman who resembled her: a runner in the park, a shopper in a mall, a businesswoman dressed smartly. None of them, of course, could be Jesse. She'd barely be eight or ten by now, and on a different continent.

Even so, when he stroked himself in the shower-a shower with as much water, even hot water, as he could ever want, with soaps and scented cleansers-he'd thought of her sometimes, wondered what it would have been like to know her here. He wondered what Jesse would have been like if they'd met before the world ended, or in a world that had never ended. He wondered what _they_ might have been like, if they'd even have met or spoken to each other without Skynet to fight together.

Then she was there, truly there...here...in this present. Undeniably Jesse, with form-fitting clothes clinging to her ass, her mop of incredible hair, her perfect eyes, her speed and agility as she ran from him. Then she turned at the hotel elevator and those rounded lips-lips that could swear to put any sailor to shame and do unbelievable things to his dick-called him "baby."

He followed her, stunned, listened to her story. She called him "Derek," told him she'd come back for him, come back to die with him. She seemed hesitant, fragile. Foreign.

Unable to reconcile his Jesse, who'd given commands as easily as she'd breathed-never mind that he'd always outranked her-with this frightened woman on the run, this coward of an AWOL soldier, he left.

But he thought. Contemplation wasn't comfortable or familiar. Who had time to reflect when every moment was an explosion waiting to happen? His nephew, his one piece of Kyle, was struggling with the burden of the future. He himself had nearly succumbed to it and Jesse had, inadvertently, saved him. If Jesse had caved and fled that hellhole of a future, could he really fault her?

And so he went back, moth to flame. Barely through the door of her hotel room, his foot shoved the door closed and he pushed her to the wall. Their hands were all over each other, disarming one another, removing clothing frantically, never breaking contact for an instant.

They'd fucked more times than he could count, but he'd never explored her, never before known-or even wondered-what her skin would feel like without layers of grime, never known her to smell or taste of anything other than sweat and fear and ordnance.

He'd never traced the surface of every scar and mark on her skin with fingertips, lips, and tongue. He'd never felt someone do the same for him, tongue and lips and fingers lingering over the marks that recorded his sufferings and his survival. His eyes burned as the feather-kisses conveyed sympathy and sorry for his pain-all their pain-and joy that he-that they-were alive and here.

When they came together she showed him how inadequate his hand had been. It was her, sucking him to attention then lowering herself onto him, moving and squeezing so that, even if he'd been asked, he could not have remembered his own name. He turned them over, setting his own rhythm as he held her hips, no longer in a crushing grip but relishing the softness of her body beneath him.

They fucked against the wall, on the hotel carpet-he had the skid marks to prove it-that was softer than the best bed in the future, in the shower, and then in that cloud-soft bed with crisply smooth sheets and mounds of soft blankets and pillows beyond the dreams memories of even the oldest resistance fighters.

Finally, spent, he slept. When awoke, in that bed, next to her, he was more sated and more comfortable than he remembered ever being in his life. They lay there, silent, touching fingers lightly, surrounded by the scent of sex and sweat and cleanness, just looking at each other.

He was contemplating fucking her again when she asked if there was a word for what they'd done.

"I have a new life, Derek," she said. "I want new words." Then, "Can you get me a drink, please?"

When Jesse Flores requested something, you fucking well _got_ it.

As he gulped the fresh clear water, and got a glass for her, he thought that telling her that they were "making love" would sound ridiculous. She was right, though. It was something different and new, only like fucking in its form. But who was he to define "love" or "making love" when the world had ended before he'd ever been with a woman?

He handed her the glass and she sipped it. He could not tear his eyes from her lips or tongue.

"So, are you going to give me a word that'll make me let you stay?"

"You and me, we're here, and we're together."

She tossed the glass aside and climbed on top of him, hands and lips roaming freely again and he joined eagerly. Apparently fucking "together" was good enough for now.

ooo

~end~

ooo


End file.
